Financial services

Feature:

Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft power CRM

11 August 2011

By pooling their combined industry capabilities, Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft are creating compelling CRM solutions for the financial services industry. Rebecca Lambert finds out more about the benefits of this collaboration

For over a decade, Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft have been working together to deliver business and technology solutions on the Microsoft platform, quickly and at scale. These services and solutions address specific business challenges and opportunities leveraging Microsoft technologies, from creating more efficient and effective IT infrastructures to enabling global collaboration, and from developing and managing applications to delivering a step change in marketing and customer service capabilities.

In their role as leading business services and solutions providers, Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft are uniquely positioned to deliver innovative, next-generation customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to help companies build great customer relationships and achieve extraordinary business value. Leveraging their combined power – CRMx3 – the three companies are working together to deliver adaptable and scalable CRM solutions designed around the needs of specific industries. These solutions are built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform and enable organisations to better engage customers and strengthen relationships across multiple channels through improved business intelligence and process automation.

“We have teamed aggressively with Avanade to position Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions in competitive situations to deliver value to our clients,” says Erik Librader, global Microsoft Dynamics CRM alliance relationship director at Accenture. “Our unique combination of unparalleled industry insights and business process knowledge, extensive Microsoft technology integration experience, and leadership in enterprise-ready technologies allows us to truly unleash the power of CRM for our clients.”

We have teamed aggressively with Avanade to position Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions in competitive situations to deliver value to our clients

Erik Librader, Accenture For the financial services industry in particular, the alliance has created two CRM solutions – CRM for Insurance and CRM for Wealth Management – which are built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and leverage SharePoint Server as the reporting and collaboration platform. These solutions have broad market relevance and are being delivered to clients across the insurance, banking and capital market sectors around the globe. Since the beginning of January 2010, the alliance has engaged with market-leading clients including Frankfurt-Trust Asset Management, Grosvenor and SEB to help improve their customer-facing capabilities and spur growth while reducing total cost of ownership.

Accenture and Avanade CRM for Insurance
Accenture and Avanade CRM for Insurance provides the essential capabilities to help insurance organisations identify high-value clients, deliver consistent service throughout the customer lifecycle and target additional opportunities that customers truly value. Taking advantage of the alliance’s industry knowledge of leading practices and innovative development, the solution enables insurance carriers, agents and brokers to manage sales and access information from several departments in one familiar system – ultimately increasing sales by promoting selected products to target customers.

Recently, the alliance commenced a five-year project with a leading insurance brokerage and consulting firm, which has operations in more than 120 countries, to develop a multi-channel marketing campaign management solution. The solution leverages CRM for Insurance combined with additional applications such as Exact Target for creating and analysing e-mail campaigns, and TK Dialogs for call centre scripting, as well as Avanade Online Services to allow the company to host information in the cloud. Together, these solutions enable the insurance company to gain a 360-degree view of customer data and interactions, allowing it to drive growth, increase profits and realise operational excellence.

From day one, the insurance company has been able to take advantage of a set of unparalleled and highly valuable skills from the alliance:

• Accenture was tapped to help the client lead the overall project management efforts and work closely with Avanade to design and build the platform. Accenture brought industry insights and business process knowledge and also worked to understand the client’s needs and ways of operating, based on several previous consulting and outsourcing engagements
• Avanade offered its Microsoft technology integration experience. Avanade Online Services provided a cost-effective, end-to-end, software-as-a-service hosting and support platform optimised for the delivery of Microsoft business solutions
• Microsoft offered its portfolio of enterprise-ready CRM technologies. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provided the functionality, rapid time-toimplementation, extensibility, and scalability that the client wanted. An added bonus was the solution’s familiar user interface and easy integration with the client’s Microsoft Office environment.

Now, using the cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, the insurance company expects to see revenues double in three years. It expects to achieve this through more effective interactions with customers, higher campaign response and conversion rates, faster campaign implementations and better cross-selling outcomes. Not only this, but the company anticipates improved agent productivity thanks to complete client information access via a familiar, easy-to-use application; and cost savings by using one global CRM tool.

The hosting capability that is provided by Avanade Online Services is also adding significant value to the client’s marketing initiatives – namely by lowering implementation risk, reducing hosting costs and enabling faster time to value. The Avanade Online Services platform also makes it possible for the client to take quick and easy advantage of additional Dynamics CRM modules such as Sales and Service, when needed.

In subsequent phases of the programme, the multi-channel campaign management functionalities will be extended and the new way of working will be rolled out to multiple locations globally.

Accenture and Avanade CRM for Wealth Management
Accenture and Avanade CRM for Wealth Management provides financial management firms with a practical, flexible, and integrated solution to build financial portfolios, grow their business by quickly identifying products that match customer needs, and improve the overall customer experience.

The solution is designed specifically for financial advisors to simplify customer management, improve customer interactions and increase loyalty. By providing a 360-degree view of the client, complete with up-to-date histories, financial advisors have the information they need to quickly spot opportunities, match products to customer needs and increase customer satisfaction. The solution also gives clients the assurance that their confidential data is protected by robust security features that support regulations on controlling, monitoring and auditing access. Plus, it delivers analytical tools to help recognise the most profitable clients, identify opportunities for additional sales, and pinpoint areas for operational improvements.

Companies already taking advantage of the solution include Frankfurt-Trust Asset Management. Frankfurt-Trust Asset Management uses Accenture and Avanade CRM for Wealth Management to reduce manual activities for its employees, and to give them better insight of the customers they are dealing with. Speaking about the success of the solution implementation, Patricia John, project lead at the company, says: “The solutions implemented by Avanade give us full control over our processes. Every type of communication offered by Microsoft Outlook is mirrored in the system.”

In a similar project, a leading global wealth manager engaged with the alliance as part of its broader multi-year transformation programme to implement a global CRM solution to help grow its financial portfolios, provide superior service to clients and quickly identify products that match client needs.

In addition to these innovative solutions for the financial services sector, the Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft alliance offers a comprehensive range of cross-industry and industry-specific solutions that go beyond traditional CRM solutions. Speaking about the alliance and the importance of CRMx3, Kelly Wink, global Microsoft Dynamics CRM marketing lead at Accenture, says: “Working together, Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft aim to provide a powerful global solution set to accelerate the sophistication, productivity and efficiency of customer-centric businesses. CRMx3 is all about our unique combination of market-leading capabilities to deliver unparalleled value for our clients.”

www.CRMx3.com/insurance
www.CRMx3.com/wealthmanagement

This article first appeared in the Autumn 2011 issue of Finance on Windows

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